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I’m curious about this, and perhaps more so in the light of the various and frequent digital vs acoustic threads since it has a bearing on how ‘realistic’ we want our sound to be. I’ve been in the habit of using reverb at a medium to low setting because, frankly, it flatters my playing while providing the delusion of being in a larger room. Just lately though I’ve decided to switch it off for practice sessions in order to gain what I think might be a more critical hearing of what I’m doing.

So, what do you do? Is the reverb on all the time/sometimes/never?

For those happy to report, I think it might be interesting* also if they could mention which DP it is they’re using, after all it may be that some digitals need a splash of dazz to sound decent.

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"I'm still an idiot and I'm still in love" - Blue Sofa - The Plugz 1981 (Tito Larriva) Disclosure : I am professionally associated with Arturia but my sentiments are my own only.

Well, this is only a personal opinion but I think that all makes put reverb on by default to camouflate the lack of natural resonance DP's have. Said that, I can't play on my PX-135 with the reverb off. It sounds so lifeless... But with my Roland I play without reverb whem playing with speakers (Supernatural has a nice resonance pack) but I can't stand it with headphones. I always put reverb on while playing on headphones.

Always on, although I like lower settings (than default) better. Apart from changing reverb type (room/small hall, ...) there is "depth" and "time" setting - I usually lower one or both but so far I can't exactly decide which one I like lowered more. Maybe I can't hear the difference very well.For pieces with a lot of stacatto I may even change the overall reverb type to "lower" (small hall to room etc.).

... But with my Roland I play without reverb whem playing with speakers (Supernatural has a nice resonance pack) but I can't stand it with headphones. I always put reverb on while playing on headphones.

Isn't it actually the real reverb of the environment than, rather than simulated resonance?

On my Nord Stage 2, I like to play with lots of different reverb settings. I have it on about 50% of the time. It's easy to change (just select the type with a button and dial in the variation with the knob). On my Yamaha P250, it's more of a pain to change, have to navigate through the reverb menu on the little screen, so I generally don't mess with it as much.

Kawai ES7. Early days. Started with no reverb and was happy with the sound. Now experimenting with reverb. Will probably use it more often than not: lounge (2nd level above room) with time at the default of 5 and depth at 7. But still experimenting. Interestingly, being a died in the wool AP person, a touch of reverb seems to bring it a bit closer to an AP in terms of fuller tone.

Isn't it actually the real reverb of the environment than, rather than simulated resonance?

Well, it may be a mixture of both and it may, indeed, explain why I hate playing with headphones without reverb. While on speakers I like to play with reverb off because I like to listen the real reverberation, even a poor one like in my room, not being fooled by a fake one.

But talking about resonance simulation, high end DP's simulates some overtones and harmonics that entry level doesn't. They aren't marvelous nor perfect, specially when been compared with the real thing, but they aren't bad. On the contrary, the PX-135 only simulates damper resonance so the sound is extremely poor so even playing with speakers (BTW, they are not very good ones) the reverb is always on in order to mitigate the lack of resonance/harmonics. Am I unhappy with my PX-135? Absolutely not! It's a wonderful instrument for it's size and I can carry it almost anywhere

Although I agree with the previous posters that some reverb helps give the piano sound some life, I have to say that I often find myself playing with the onboard reverb off for the simple reason I don't like the quality of the reverb itself. In my opinion it has a very electronic character, to the point that it spoils the realism of the well-sampled piano samples.

I do understand the technical choice of recording dry piano samples in an anechoic chamber, to be able to simulate any playing setting by digital reverb technology, but the risk of this choice is that the reverb itself is not good enough to provide a convincing result.

The V-Piano has no reverb button, but you can adjust all the various resonances (string, soundboard, cross-) from -100 to +100, plus there's an 'ambience' dial. I set the latter to the mid-point. But on the presets, the V Concert settings give a slightly more distant sound with some ambience anyway, which is my favored one (i.e. which my preferred customizations are based on) as the sound is like playing in a medium-sized concert hall. The 'V Studio' presets give a 'close' sound, which I don't much like, though I imagine jazz pianists would prefer it.

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"I don't play accurately - anyone can play accurately - but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life."

On my Roland HP-505 with headphones I keep the reverb off, there is enough going on having the string, cabinet and damper resonance, the keyoff, etc. -parameters well adjusted. But with the speaker system I add some subtle reverb with value between 1 and 3 (min 0 - 10 max would be possible) to it (and also increase brilliance to the max, while having brilliance with headphones at the neutral (default) value), because it supports me in my impression that the room is becoming more smoothly flooded by sound and sound is not as direct coming out from the furniture. Going to higher reverbs tends to blur to much.

I can vouch for that! I’m using an ancient kawai ES1 (must be the first in this line unless they made an ES0 or ES minus 1), long in the tooth and hopelessly short on sustain so reverb does help. But it also looks like even the higher-end instruments are preferred with a little stardust – reverb for most of us, something more esoteric for the modelled instruments and then there are the speaker/amp/EQ possibilities.

It looks like we don’t really want ‘realism’ – whatever that might be - but something beyond it.

As I observed In this topic this kind of processing (reverb, spatialiser) can be very beneficial especially with sampled intruments sampled with a special mic perspective without blending. It is IMHO why layering also would often perceived as a remedy against some not satisfactorily descrcribed shortcomings of DPs.